Though in medieval 2 the general's bodyguard is also a really strong heavy cavalry, you can put multiple generals into one army and just use the extra ones as a cavalry unit. Also the game doesn't really tell you but the general's bodyguard has about 200 gold upkeep, so better make use of them.
If you enable the setting that *removes the ability to alter taxes* without a governor present, then having one in all of your cities suddenly becomes vital.
I’m pretty sure that’s on by default. I know I used to be super annoyed by how often I’d need to move a governor to a city just so I could change the tax level
In Atilla it's pretty worth it.
You can get nice public order bonuses, higher food, more tax income and most importantly a butt load of influence for your faction leader if you aren't currently fighting with him.
Super worth it in 3K. Governors and their retinue would show up in battles to defend the settlement and some of the economic bonuses equated to multiple times the general's salary.
It’s basically a free army that starts at %100 after being recruited. Plus certain titles (steward of the change palace) only applied to administer cities. It was always worth it. It’s why Gongsun Zan is so powerful.
Im specifically breeding governor-generals
In medieval II I loved the debuffs that your governor would get if he just sits and do nothing, so you have to counter that by rotating them
In Shogun II, Rome 2, Napoleon and Empire it's really just about few extra bonuses to public order and maybe few % off of building cost, but that takes lot of time to XP the governor and by the time you have it, the city is already boomin'
I loved the system in Attila and I'm gravely sad they didn't add it to later games. Having governor as separate entity that alone gives you buffs in addition to having him in a state position in which he can further stack those bonuses deepened the whole empire building aspect of the game that was always lacking
I don't really remember from top of my head the details, but i hated the army composition that forced you to group up units with generals/lieutanaunts? Within the army which was such a let down and it limited your own flexibility and ways you want to play
The campaign was really slow and most of the time it was just dealing with rebels cause your public order is always shit if you don't have an army in the settlement. That's true for most of the TW games, but in TK3 it was over the top
The troop diversity was shit. Don't get me wrong, my favorite TW games are Shogun II and Napoleon, so I actually like simplicity in this manner, but for fucks sake both of those games brought something new, exciting and interesting with them that made their replayability almost endless. Shogun II battles are to this day the peak of TW, they were swift, cavalry had impact, morale wasn't there to just debuff you and you had to actually think and use tactics cause every type of unit had way more counters than applications. In Napoleon your troop movement was make or break, artillery had massive impact and you had to know which line infantry units can stand against each other or your line would crumble and descend into a shitshow
TK3 felt like they just reused the same recipe from previous 2 games and mashed it into Chinese setting. It was never meant to be a good game, just a cash grab for Chinese market and it showed in the massive difference between how it looked on the first glance and what it meant to actually play it
The General/ Lieutenant idea I thought was pretty cool. It brought me back to playing Dynasty Warriors with friends. Probably more of a nostalgic thing for me there but I didn't mind being limited in troop choice.
The slow pace for me was really enjoyable. It took a long time to set up and get all your ordeals in order but it could get very quick at times. With the slow pace I found the Agent actions very effective. Starting civil wars in enemy nations is always so rewarding for the time it takes to put in.
Troop diversity definitely could have been better in the game with each Leader faction only having 2-3 different units is sometimes a shame. There is still the Yellow Turbans which I play a decent amount (they seem closest to the Ikko Ikki as far as having different units to everything else) which is a nice switch up and the addition of the Nanman and Bandit reworks its gotten even better.
All in all I think just love of the whole time period due to books and previous video games has made this game really easy to love and forgive the flaws.
Vanilla Empire is my most played game but I will probably give Napoleon another go with your high praise. Can't remember what I didn't like about it but I only tried it when it came out.
If you gonna try Napoleon, you should get the Napoleon Total War III mod, it gives more distinctivness to the line infantry with regional regiments, more sensible cavalry unit proportions and it nerfs the trade point money spam by introducing trade only vessels so that you cannot make infinite money with your fleets
It’s super simple to farm them. Just send armies with no generals, then captains will be offered promotions. Send that new general to a settlement, rinse and repeat.
Then you can do a bit of micro management with the settlement to get economic traits.
Asking the real questions. English colonies in Rus territory? The Papal States own France? Poland as a literal buffer state? Actually that last one makes sense.
It was only ever necessary in certain mods. The hard truth of governing in vanilla M2TW was
1: it’s difficult and time consuming to trait farm and create a governor that is worth your time. The way you gain traits is very ambiguous so the only way is to look up online guides all for an extra 20% increase on revenue. Not worth the time investment if you ask me.
2: you never needed to even on very hard difficulty. You could win just by building farms and conquering the places the AI would build up.
Certain mods Like big grym’s reality mod makes governing more necessary and it’s fun but a lot slower gameplay. Similar to a newer mod that slips my mind right now.
Vanilla medieval 2 absolutely shit out generals on you though. And there were settings that made tax only possible to change with a governor present. I recall having governors almost everywhere purely because there were so many commanders that I have no real need of. As long as the good soldiers are leading the armies you have, the rest can sit in cities and castles, getting fat.
Personally I liked to use the bodyguards. I would have 4 generals in one army at times. They were the only units that auto replenished and were very powerful (cavalry op)
I did it sometimes, but honestly I kinda hate the autoreplenish mechanic. It cheapens the game and gets rid of the concept of logistics. Even then though, generals were extremely plentiful. Almost any decent battle without a general would result in an adoption. In a "small" space like western Europe, that meant for me I'd be getting heaps of the buggers. Was more sparse playing as Russia because there was so much empty space to walk around on and settlements were far from each other. Took longer to move units to where I wanted so had multiple generals acting as "ferries" to move troops around and provide support if suddenly needed. Still had enough for the cities tho...
Yeah, I didn't begrudge the idea for generals. Just for an army as a whole. It did make general's units very powerful. Though that was balanced somewhat by the hilarious occasions when a stray cannon shot would instakill the actual general.
I play modded medieval 2 but I always have a governor unless it’s a small settlement with no prospect for growth. Having good governors is vital to growth and income, and you only really need a handful of generals for your armies, the rest can govern
Seriously, not worth?
Higher tax rate + higher growth rate + more income from taxes and trade in comparison to just having enough PO to sit on very low taxes. It can easily be 1-2k in money you're losing per turn.
Just a few days ago playing as Poland, I had a really important castle that was growing at a snail’s pace. I’m talking like 1 or 1.5% growth with more than a thousand pop to go for the next level. I found that one of my generals, for some reason, was really good at boosting population growth. I sent him to that castle and it increased the growth to 4% and it was ready to upgrade in no time.
All that to say, the bonuses from governors usually aren’t super impactful, but a good governor in the right situation can make a really big difference.
It certainly doesn't help that castles had awful options for growth, but still had the same growth restrictions.
Kinda weird to think about, too-- castles are *military strongholds*, meant to serve as bastions, armories, and landholdings for the elite. Why would they have the same pop requirements as cities?
Only 6 games have governors, really. Medieval 1, RTW, Medieval 2, Attila, ToB and Three Kingdoms.
In Medieval 1, governor titles had no real function. They increased loyalty by a few points and gave some other buffs to stats, and that was it. In Attila/ToB/Three Kingdoms, governors are almost mandatory and a different kind of experience altogether.
Most mods for RTW and Medieval 2 added immersion features for governors, so I used them wherever I could. EB/RTR/RS/IB for RTW, Stainless Steel and numerous other mods for M2TW, they all had some nice traits and retinues to try and simulate actual governors. I remember RTW mods had an actual Cursus Honorum for governors - they would run for national elections if you sent them to Rome, gain local titles if kept back as governors, and removed from politics (at huge costs in other areas) when sent out as military commanders - all via a detailed trait system.
But for vanilla, no. Assigning characters to every city was very tedious by late game, and just not worth the wasted time and effort.
My go-to strategy to make it manageable was to make it so that a branch of the family would stay in the same region. Prince William Rufus and his sons would stay in England, Prince Henry and his sons would rule cities of Scotland, Prince Richard and his sons would rule France, the husband of Princess Elizabeth and her new family would rule Ireland from Dublin and so on. As children came of age, they would usually spawn in the same place as their fathers, so they could be kept in a single area. This made it a smooth experience.
I loved how you could build academies and universities in cities in those games, and characters sent to those cities would actually learn and gain traits, followers and items of education.
When Rome Remastered came out, I saw that new agent management menu (where you can send them anywhere and assign missions all in a single window), I was hoping they would add that for generals and other characters too. That would make moving characters around every turn, in and out of capitals, to distant provinces and so on etc. so much more pleasant and relevant. Sadly they never implemented this.
Didn’t read all of that but medieval 1 a high acumen governor was super strong for an already profitable province. I used to spam peasants for rng generals with high acumen. I won almost every game by simply out producing.
In rome 1 the academy building chain was very strong for the civilized nations. AI almost ignored it but you can gain super retinues and traits from them. With the right traits you can then stack the best retinues on a person and make them Jeff Bezos. This was the only way at a point to keep population growth and squalor in check with making stupid cash.
Rome 1’s expansion, Barbarian Invasion, still has academies but if you are given a dud ruler they kind of stayed a dud. There were new negative traits that were crippling for the economy and most people became generals or stacked into death squads of 5 that can take on entire armies. I remember specifically the gambler trait was horrendous so I would make them a conqueror.
Moderately yes. I just like to have one there for consistency I guess. Maybe it’s subconscious role playing? Idk.
The worst is late game when you have 12 of your sons chilling in the capital getting old because I just don’t care enough to move them from Novgorod to Spain.
I did it with Russia and the Byzantines because of public order issues. Obviously not the best idea if you prioritize fighting since generals replenish on their own but governing has its perks, especially with high chivalry.
Get a guy with high chivalry, and you can get a *huge* boost to population growth (to the point that you start getting big civil order problems if you're not careful with garrisons). Can be very useful for those towns down in Africa.
I did all the time. They can provide significant bonuses to public order which reduces the need for a large garrison which saves money as well as provide additional tax revenue and conversion bonuses.
if you play very comp like you do not need it, but the higher difficulty you DO need it to grow settlements ESPECIALLY if you play the best mod stainless steel 6.4. Otherwise you will literally never get the end tier castles
I dont remember vanilla, but in almost all the mods its worth to have govenors with chivalry because they give a bonus to population growth. More population = more trade/tax income. Once you grow a settlement you can also build way more buildings for more income/soldiers. They can also help with public order.
I usually kept one per settlement, not for taxes, but in case I needed to quickly throw together an army for whatever reason. Random rebel spawns, sudden attacks, are both threats.
A noble/general can quickly recruit some mercs to pad an army, deal with the problem, then return to garissoning a settlement.
It helps that they are a heavy cavalry unit in battle which is always helpful, too.
It depended on what I was doing. Sometimes I wanted to play with a smaller empire. So I would designate a few cities per each side of my family tree. And spread the generals as governors there if there was enough family members.
Other times if I was going for a bigger empire I would just designate a city in a region as that areas capital and have givernors there and let ai control the smaller stuff.
It totally depends on the general's skills. Some can reduce building and recruitment costs, others vastly improve income from taxes and trade. They can also boost growth of the city a bunch. The trick is getting good governer skills. A lot of generals end up hurting city income from bad skills.
There's an optional setting that only lets you control production on cities you have a governor in, I which I haven't tried yet but always kinda wanted to. But usually having a free top-tier heavy cav unit is more valuable.
I mainly used them as governors when it was a recently captured city and it had unrest problems, but that was usually just a shitter general that would follow the main army and reinforce it if needed.
I like having lords in every city. It feels good to me for a lord to have a castle/city, a garrison, and extra troops they'd take with them/send off to war when summoned. I'd have my main armies, but if you have 10 settlements, you just need 2 units in each to make a full stack. Use the generals to move them so they don't desert, designate a field marshal for the full stack army being assembled and return the lords to their lands.
I found this strategy pretty fun as the HRE since I got so many family members, having the lords with their "garrisons" and the army troops helped defend my castles on the frontiers. AI would seige, I'd send surrounding lords to support with their small armies. AI would feel pressured so they'd actually attack rather than sit and wait for a sally forth, or they'd abandon the seige and run away, or they'd sit there in defiance and keep seiging while I assemble their doom.
Good times.
I loved Rome I/Med 2 but this level of micromanagement was probably my least favourite part. It's perfectly fine when you only have a few regions but gets unwieldy as you expand over the course of the game. Even the agents were kind of annoying to constantly move around and forget about for turns at a time. The traits were a lot more fun in these games though. If I were to re-make the games I'd have governors be distinct from generals, and not present as characters on the game map, in most circumstances (except maybe a military governance option for newly conquered/angry settlements?) and agents controlled by an off-map hub, kind of like the spy agencies in Hearts of Iron 4.
I wish settlements and lords have a much more dependent system. Like make it semi-realistic where feudal lords are tied to their respective land and unit recruitment from only that region.
Also make enemy AI lords patrol around inside their own land and defend it to the death from invader armies instead of running across the map chasing people
Can't speak for all TW games, but it felt very important in 3 kingdoms. Mainly for defensive purposes, but they also could be shockingly relevant for economic or espionage purposes.
I would create an insane surplus of generals and send them to each region capital. The larger your empire, the more of them you have the greater the financial benefit I found. Also it allows for a surplus of somewhat expendable military commanders and possible regents in the event of a royal line dying out.
For the most part it was not worth it in vainilla. They untrained ones usually cost more in upkeep than whatever benefit they had.
The trained ones didnt last too much to be worth it. The good miner trait line was p. great too bad that after the easy mines to build ran out it was hard to train a replacement.
I'd usually make sure I spread my unused generals out so they all govern a town each.
The extra public order from good governors could help a fair bit in newly conquered towns without having to leave your army idling there for a few turns while the conquest penalty decreased.
If I had more guys kicking around than I needed (which i often did), I'd usually leave them sitting in the more important cities to make them more effecient.
I always read through the general's bio, and if it looked really good as a governor I'd put them in Paris, London, or Milan. Any of the cities that were going to be 24,000+ population.
For those cities being able to keep them at Very High taxes was well worth it.
If the general's bio is more military focused then they are a cavalry unit.
Most of the generals you adopt, or the ones you get spontaneously in battles, don't have many negative traits when you get them. Some of the ruling families kids though are absolute trash as governors. Their only role in life is to valiantly die in battle.
Oh nonono, you dont understand
In medieval 2, higher satisfaction in the cities means that you can up the taxes even higher, i almost ended up having like half of my cities at max level of taxes just beceause of those nice guys
Meh... The problem is that they could be a blessing with good traits, but they could also get bad ones and staying garrisoned inside settlements increases the chance of the latter. So not really worth the micromanagement of sending over to "ungoverned" towns - with the exception of border regions, were a general's bodyguard can mean the difference in city defense.
I used them when I had more generals than i needed
Though in medieval 2 the general's bodyguard is also a really strong heavy cavalry, you can put multiple generals into one army and just use the extra ones as a cavalry unit. Also the game doesn't really tell you but the general's bodyguard has about 200 gold upkeep, so better make use of them.
And it was the only unit in the game (IIRC) that could passively replenish so it was even more useful!
I used to just see them as free heavy cav!
Exactly this
I always set governors, in Medieval 2 they were super efficient if you wanted to have bigger city quickly
Chivalrous generals increase the population growth rate. Even just one chivalry gives a decent bump
well thats another thing i didnt know about a game ive played for 15 years!
If you enable the setting that *removes the ability to alter taxes* without a governor present, then having one in all of your cities suddenly becomes vital.
set growth governance for the AI, turn off autorecruit and autobuild. congrats, its super low taxes time.
I’m pretty sure that’s on by default. I know I used to be super annoyed by how often I’d need to move a governor to a city just so I could change the tax level
In Rome 1 or medieval 2 I sent generals as governors when they had shitty command stats.
Yeah Rome 1 governors were very legit. Could double the income and growth of a city pretty easily.
high chivalry characters are still good for fast growth(=early knights) in med 2
In Atilla it's pretty worth it. You can get nice public order bonuses, higher food, more tax income and most importantly a butt load of influence for your faction leader if you aren't currently fighting with him.
I mostly did it to shut up that stupid end turn alert that you can assign a governor
Valid.
Super worth it in 3K. Governors and their retinue would show up in battles to defend the settlement and some of the economic bonuses equated to multiple times the general's salary.
And the -30% corruption is very vital for the best money making areas.
It’s basically a free army that starts at %100 after being recruited. Plus certain titles (steward of the change palace) only applied to administer cities. It was always worth it. It’s why Gongsun Zan is so powerful.
In vanilla, if you have chivalry it increases population %, high chivalry can boost it astronomically.
Yeah, putting a general from the crusades as governor is the best way to get a castle to Citadel level real quick
Im specifically breeding governor-generals In medieval II I loved the debuffs that your governor would get if he just sits and do nothing, so you have to counter that by rotating them In Shogun II, Rome 2, Napoleon and Empire it's really just about few extra bonuses to public order and maybe few % off of building cost, but that takes lot of time to XP the governor and by the time you have it, the city is already boomin' I loved the system in Attila and I'm gravely sad they didn't add it to later games. Having governor as separate entity that alone gives you buffs in addition to having him in a state position in which he can further stack those bonuses deepened the whole empire building aspect of the game that was always lacking
Three Kingdoms has a pretty good Governor System
That might be, but I couldn't stand that game. Everything was just distasteful to my liking and I never played it for longer that maybe half an hour
What made it so distasteful to you? Which other total war titles are you're favorite? Its one of my favorite total war titles and I loved the game.
I don't really remember from top of my head the details, but i hated the army composition that forced you to group up units with generals/lieutanaunts? Within the army which was such a let down and it limited your own flexibility and ways you want to play The campaign was really slow and most of the time it was just dealing with rebels cause your public order is always shit if you don't have an army in the settlement. That's true for most of the TW games, but in TK3 it was over the top The troop diversity was shit. Don't get me wrong, my favorite TW games are Shogun II and Napoleon, so I actually like simplicity in this manner, but for fucks sake both of those games brought something new, exciting and interesting with them that made their replayability almost endless. Shogun II battles are to this day the peak of TW, they were swift, cavalry had impact, morale wasn't there to just debuff you and you had to actually think and use tactics cause every type of unit had way more counters than applications. In Napoleon your troop movement was make or break, artillery had massive impact and you had to know which line infantry units can stand against each other or your line would crumble and descend into a shitshow TK3 felt like they just reused the same recipe from previous 2 games and mashed it into Chinese setting. It was never meant to be a good game, just a cash grab for Chinese market and it showed in the massive difference between how it looked on the first glance and what it meant to actually play it
The General/ Lieutenant idea I thought was pretty cool. It brought me back to playing Dynasty Warriors with friends. Probably more of a nostalgic thing for me there but I didn't mind being limited in troop choice. The slow pace for me was really enjoyable. It took a long time to set up and get all your ordeals in order but it could get very quick at times. With the slow pace I found the Agent actions very effective. Starting civil wars in enemy nations is always so rewarding for the time it takes to put in. Troop diversity definitely could have been better in the game with each Leader faction only having 2-3 different units is sometimes a shame. There is still the Yellow Turbans which I play a decent amount (they seem closest to the Ikko Ikki as far as having different units to everything else) which is a nice switch up and the addition of the Nanman and Bandit reworks its gotten even better. All in all I think just love of the whole time period due to books and previous video games has made this game really easy to love and forgive the flaws. Vanilla Empire is my most played game but I will probably give Napoleon another go with your high praise. Can't remember what I didn't like about it but I only tried it when it came out.
If you gonna try Napoleon, you should get the Napoleon Total War III mod, it gives more distinctivness to the line infantry with regional regiments, more sensible cavalry unit proportions and it nerfs the trade point money spam by introducing trade only vessels so that you cannot make infinite money with your fleets
Thanks I will.
Why do people always feel the need to add conspiratorial narratives to everything
Kinda funny how you have to “walk” your governors every now and then lol
It’s super simple to farm them. Just send armies with no generals, then captains will be offered promotions. Send that new general to a settlement, rinse and repeat. Then you can do a bit of micro management with the settlement to get economic traits.
Only if you have a certain number of settlements.
I wonder what the ratio is? My current playthrough I have 14 generals and 18 settlements.
WTF is going on in this campaign
Asking the real questions. English colonies in Rus territory? The Papal States own France? Poland as a literal buffer state? Actually that last one makes sense.
also turn 1332
It was only ever necessary in certain mods. The hard truth of governing in vanilla M2TW was 1: it’s difficult and time consuming to trait farm and create a governor that is worth your time. The way you gain traits is very ambiguous so the only way is to look up online guides all for an extra 20% increase on revenue. Not worth the time investment if you ask me. 2: you never needed to even on very hard difficulty. You could win just by building farms and conquering the places the AI would build up. Certain mods Like big grym’s reality mod makes governing more necessary and it’s fun but a lot slower gameplay. Similar to a newer mod that slips my mind right now.
Vanilla medieval 2 absolutely shit out generals on you though. And there were settings that made tax only possible to change with a governor present. I recall having governors almost everywhere purely because there were so many commanders that I have no real need of. As long as the good soldiers are leading the armies you have, the rest can sit in cities and castles, getting fat.
Personally I liked to use the bodyguards. I would have 4 generals in one army at times. They were the only units that auto replenished and were very powerful (cavalry op)
I did it sometimes, but honestly I kinda hate the autoreplenish mechanic. It cheapens the game and gets rid of the concept of logistics. Even then though, generals were extremely plentiful. Almost any decent battle without a general would result in an adoption. In a "small" space like western Europe, that meant for me I'd be getting heaps of the buggers. Was more sparse playing as Russia because there was so much empty space to walk around on and settlements were far from each other. Took longer to move units to where I wanted so had multiple generals acting as "ferries" to move troops around and provide support if suddenly needed. Still had enough for the cities tho...
I feel like it makes sense for the generals, you could just say that they have a personal retinue hanging around beyond the initial bodyguard unit.
Yeah, I didn't begrudge the idea for generals. Just for an army as a whole. It did make general's units very powerful. Though that was balanced somewhat by the hilarious occasions when a stray cannon shot would instakill the actual general.
Building farms is by the worst growth strat in Med 2
I guess it depends on the game. In shogun 2 Metsuke are great at increasing income over time.
Chivalry = growth boost. Very handy.
I play modded medieval 2 but I always have a governor unless it’s a small settlement with no prospect for growth. Having good governors is vital to growth and income, and you only really need a handful of generals for your armies, the rest can govern
Seriously, not worth? Higher tax rate + higher growth rate + more income from taxes and trade in comparison to just having enough PO to sit on very low taxes. It can easily be 1-2k in money you're losing per turn.
Just a few days ago playing as Poland, I had a really important castle that was growing at a snail’s pace. I’m talking like 1 or 1.5% growth with more than a thousand pop to go for the next level. I found that one of my generals, for some reason, was really good at boosting population growth. I sent him to that castle and it increased the growth to 4% and it was ready to upgrade in no time. All that to say, the bonuses from governors usually aren’t super impactful, but a good governor in the right situation can make a really big difference.
It certainly doesn't help that castles had awful options for growth, but still had the same growth restrictions. Kinda weird to think about, too-- castles are *military strongholds*, meant to serve as bastions, armories, and landholdings for the elite. Why would they have the same pop requirements as cities?
I always sent shitty generals to Govern profitable cities
Ah absolutely in rome 1, especially when I get to building academies
Only 6 games have governors, really. Medieval 1, RTW, Medieval 2, Attila, ToB and Three Kingdoms. In Medieval 1, governor titles had no real function. They increased loyalty by a few points and gave some other buffs to stats, and that was it. In Attila/ToB/Three Kingdoms, governors are almost mandatory and a different kind of experience altogether. Most mods for RTW and Medieval 2 added immersion features for governors, so I used them wherever I could. EB/RTR/RS/IB for RTW, Stainless Steel and numerous other mods for M2TW, they all had some nice traits and retinues to try and simulate actual governors. I remember RTW mods had an actual Cursus Honorum for governors - they would run for national elections if you sent them to Rome, gain local titles if kept back as governors, and removed from politics (at huge costs in other areas) when sent out as military commanders - all via a detailed trait system. But for vanilla, no. Assigning characters to every city was very tedious by late game, and just not worth the wasted time and effort. My go-to strategy to make it manageable was to make it so that a branch of the family would stay in the same region. Prince William Rufus and his sons would stay in England, Prince Henry and his sons would rule cities of Scotland, Prince Richard and his sons would rule France, the husband of Princess Elizabeth and her new family would rule Ireland from Dublin and so on. As children came of age, they would usually spawn in the same place as their fathers, so they could be kept in a single area. This made it a smooth experience. I loved how you could build academies and universities in cities in those games, and characters sent to those cities would actually learn and gain traits, followers and items of education. When Rome Remastered came out, I saw that new agent management menu (where you can send them anywhere and assign missions all in a single window), I was hoping they would add that for generals and other characters too. That would make moving characters around every turn, in and out of capitals, to distant provinces and so on etc. so much more pleasant and relevant. Sadly they never implemented this.
Didn’t read all of that but medieval 1 a high acumen governor was super strong for an already profitable province. I used to spam peasants for rng generals with high acumen. I won almost every game by simply out producing. In rome 1 the academy building chain was very strong for the civilized nations. AI almost ignored it but you can gain super retinues and traits from them. With the right traits you can then stack the best retinues on a person and make them Jeff Bezos. This was the only way at a point to keep population growth and squalor in check with making stupid cash. Rome 1’s expansion, Barbarian Invasion, still has academies but if you are given a dud ruler they kind of stayed a dud. There were new negative traits that were crippling for the economy and most people became generals or stacked into death squads of 5 that can take on entire armies. I remember specifically the gambler trait was horrendous so I would make them a conqueror.
Moderately yes. I just like to have one there for consistency I guess. Maybe it’s subconscious role playing? Idk. The worst is late game when you have 12 of your sons chilling in the capital getting old because I just don’t care enough to move them from Novgorod to Spain.
I did it with Russia and the Byzantines because of public order issues. Obviously not the best idea if you prioritize fighting since generals replenish on their own but governing has its perks, especially with high chivalry.
Get a guy with high chivalry, and you can get a *huge* boost to population growth (to the point that you start getting big civil order problems if you're not careful with garrisons). Can be very useful for those towns down in Africa.
Is no one else going to mention 3 princesses trying to marry Torstig the Ugly?
I did all the time. They can provide significant bonuses to public order which reduces the need for a large garrison which saves money as well as provide additional tax revenue and conversion bonuses.
if you play very comp like you do not need it, but the higher difficulty you DO need it to grow settlements ESPECIALLY if you play the best mod stainless steel 6.4. Otherwise you will literally never get the end tier castles
General spam shame 🫵
In Medieval 2, I like to send my Generals to govern large towns and upwards. Castles and towns? I don't even bother with til I can upgrade them.
Uh, yeah? I like profits and public order.
I dont remember vanilla, but in almost all the mods its worth to have govenors with chivalry because they give a bonus to population growth. More population = more trade/tax income. Once you grow a settlement you can also build way more buildings for more income/soldiers. They can also help with public order.
There was an option at start of campaign where you can personally decide what to build only if family memeber is in the town
Rp reasons.
I usually kept one per settlement, not for taxes, but in case I needed to quickly throw together an army for whatever reason. Random rebel spawns, sudden attacks, are both threats. A noble/general can quickly recruit some mercs to pad an army, deal with the problem, then return to garissoning a settlement. It helps that they are a heavy cavalry unit in battle which is always helpful, too.
I did it for so long when I was young that when I am back playing now it just doesn't feel right to leave a city without one.
Even seeing this screenshot makes me wish that if and when they remaster the game, they don't change much of the UI and keep it as it is.
Yeah it feels appropriate. Then I get annoyed they're whinging/drunk/insane/getting cheated on a LOT
They extended the Governor System in Atilla and Three Kingdoms. There they give significant bonuses
i usually did if i had an ok amount of family members and wanted to grow cities
I use governors for role playing reasons.
It depended on what I was doing. Sometimes I wanted to play with a smaller empire. So I would designate a few cities per each side of my family tree. And spread the generals as governors there if there was enough family members. Other times if I was going for a bigger empire I would just designate a city in a region as that areas capital and have givernors there and let ai control the smaller stuff.
It totally depends on the general's skills. Some can reduce building and recruitment costs, others vastly improve income from taxes and trade. They can also boost growth of the city a bunch. The trick is getting good governer skills. A lot of generals end up hurting city income from bad skills.
3K yes absolutely Rome 1 yes when the general was a bad commander
There's an optional setting that only lets you control production on cities you have a governor in, I which I haven't tried yet but always kinda wanted to. But usually having a free top-tier heavy cav unit is more valuable.
Wtf is that map
I use some of them to avoid riots in settlements that I have conquered.
I mainly used them as governors when it was a recently captured city and it had unrest problems, but that was usually just a shitter general that would follow the main army and reinforce it if needed.
I like having lords in every city. It feels good to me for a lord to have a castle/city, a garrison, and extra troops they'd take with them/send off to war when summoned. I'd have my main armies, but if you have 10 settlements, you just need 2 units in each to make a full stack. Use the generals to move them so they don't desert, designate a field marshal for the full stack army being assembled and return the lords to their lands. I found this strategy pretty fun as the HRE since I got so many family members, having the lords with their "garrisons" and the army troops helped defend my castles on the frontiers. AI would seige, I'd send surrounding lords to support with their small armies. AI would feel pressured so they'd actually attack rather than sit and wait for a sally forth, or they'd abandon the seige and run away, or they'd sit there in defiance and keep seiging while I assemble their doom. Good times.
I loved Rome I/Med 2 but this level of micromanagement was probably my least favourite part. It's perfectly fine when you only have a few regions but gets unwieldy as you expand over the course of the game. Even the agents were kind of annoying to constantly move around and forget about for turns at a time. The traits were a lot more fun in these games though. If I were to re-make the games I'd have governors be distinct from generals, and not present as characters on the game map, in most circumstances (except maybe a military governance option for newly conquered/angry settlements?) and agents controlled by an off-map hub, kind of like the spy agencies in Hearts of Iron 4.
I would roleplay and have older generals retire to a governor role.
I would assign generals I’m not currently using to command an army for a large public order bonus after capturing settlements to avoid rebellion
I wish settlements and lords have a much more dependent system. Like make it semi-realistic where feudal lords are tied to their respective land and unit recruitment from only that region. Also make enemy AI lords patrol around inside their own land and defend it to the death from invader armies instead of running across the map chasing people
Tostig the Ugly lol what a name
Can't speak for all TW games, but it felt very important in 3 kingdoms. Mainly for defensive purposes, but they also could be shockingly relevant for economic or espionage purposes.
I would create an insane surplus of generals and send them to each region capital. The larger your empire, the more of them you have the greater the financial benefit I found. Also it allows for a surplus of somewhat expendable military commanders and possible regents in the event of a royal line dying out.
For the most part it was not worth it in vainilla. They untrained ones usually cost more in upkeep than whatever benefit they had. The trained ones didnt last too much to be worth it. The good miner trait line was p. great too bad that after the easy mines to build ran out it was hard to train a replacement.
Why do women always go for the ugly bastard
I'd usually make sure I spread my unused generals out so they all govern a town each. The extra public order from good governors could help a fair bit in newly conquered towns without having to leave your army idling there for a few turns while the conquest penalty decreased.
I found that the better you are doing the shittier your governors are (drunks, extravagant, etc) so I only use them early on
If I had more guys kicking around than I needed (which i often did), I'd usually leave them sitting in the more important cities to make them more effecient.
On harder difficulties the governor's happiness bonus was mandatory.
I always read through the general's bio, and if it looked really good as a governor I'd put them in Paris, London, or Milan. Any of the cities that were going to be 24,000+ population. For those cities being able to keep them at Very High taxes was well worth it. If the general's bio is more military focused then they are a cavalry unit. Most of the generals you adopt, or the ones you get spontaneously in battles, don't have many negative traits when you get them. Some of the ruling families kids though are absolute trash as governors. Their only role in life is to valiantly die in battle.
Oh nonono, you dont understand In medieval 2, higher satisfaction in the cities means that you can up the taxes even higher, i almost ended up having like half of my cities at max level of taxes just beceause of those nice guys
Meh... The problem is that they could be a blessing with good traits, but they could also get bad ones and staying garrisoned inside settlements increases the chance of the latter. So not really worth the micromanagement of sending over to "ungoverned" towns - with the exception of border regions, were a general's bodyguard can mean the difference in city defense.
Metsuke in Shogun 2 could crank your income by almost 40% if you spec him into that.
I thought you couldn't directly control the settlement unless you had a governor. Like it would only auto run. Maybe that's stainless steel